[DATEBOOK] MLS announced its 2012 schedule that features its earliest start ever. The season begins with five games on March 10. The next day's FC Dallas-New York game will air on NBC Sports Network, the first of 41 games to be broadcast by the NBC Sports Group, the most of MLS's television partners.

The three games on NBC are the most regular-season MLS games on an English-language broadcast network since 2002.

ESPN will air 21 games -- 11 on ESPN, nine on ESPN2 and all on ESPN Deportes.

Univision will broadcast 27 regular-season games in Spanish, two-thirds of them on Sunday evenings, across three of its networks -- TeleFutura, Galavisión and Univision Deportes, its 24-hour sports network launching soon